Parker v. Brown 317 U.S. 341 (1943)
PARKER v. BROWN 317 U.S. 341 (1943)
A California statute compelled raisin growers to comply with the orders of a state-sponsored marketing monopoly. Farmers could sell thirty percent of their crop on the open market; the remainder went to the state commission, which controlled the interstate supply and price. This law survived challenge when a unanimous bench followed reasoning laid out earlier by Justice harlan fiske stone in disanto v. pennsylvania (1927). Here Stone dismissed statutory objections: the sherman antitrust act applied only to individual, not state, action; neither did the commerce clause forbid this state regulation. Most important, Congress, in the agricultural marketing agreement act, did not preempt this state legislation but reflected a congressional policy to encourage it.
David Gordon
(1986)
(see also: State Regulation of Commerce.)